Hedge fund Tudor Investment lays off 15 percent of staff: source

BOSTON (Reuters) - Billionaire hedge fund manager Paul Tudor Jones on Tuesday laid off roughly five dozen employees, or about 15 percent of his workforce, a person familiar with the moves said on Tuesday, in the wake of poor returns and investor redemptions.

The cuts were made across the board at Tudor Investment Corp, which oversees roughly $11 billion for wealthy investors, sovereign wealth funds and pension funds and ranks as one of the industry’s oldest.

The news was first reported by Bloomberg. Patrick Clifford, a spokesman for the fund, declined to comment.

The firm’s flagship Tudor BVI Global Fund, which makes bets on global trends including currencies and interest rates, has returned an average 18 percent a year since it began trading in 1986. This year, however, the fund has lost 2.5 percent through late July.

The firm’s other funds are also in the red for the year after making money in 2015 when the average hedge fund lost money.

A number of global macro funds are suffering losses this year and the average hedge fund has returned 3 percent this year.

A number of hedge funds have laid off staff at a time when investors have been pressuring firms to cut fees and some asked for their money back as returns suffer. This summer Pershing Square Capital Management cut 10 percent of its staff.